Preview of Justice

Designer: Ren Multamäki

Artist: Sampo Jumisko

3-5 players

45 minutes

Played 3 times at 3 & 4 players

Justice is a hidden role game that uses trick-taking to hide some information while letting you shift levers to your ideal positions.

Theme: 

Based on the Dwarven society of Odrixia, the same world as Factory 42 ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/314125/factory-42 ), we are members of the Council of Law and Order.

At the start of the game, we will have three accused citizens before us. They have been accused of a crime. The crime (and trump) is determined by a combination of an adjective card and a crime card, so a few examples are Idiotic Indecency, Shameless Treason, or Widespread Conspiracy.

Each of the accused is secretly either guilty or not guilty, based on a secret card placed under the character card.

Sadly, you are not necessarily the open-minded jurist you might hope to be. You might secretly be an anarchist, a commissar, or a redeemer. Each of these has certain desired outcomes, such as wanting everyone convicted, everyone acquitted, only the guilty convicted, or only the innocent convicted.

Your power in the matter comes from your ability to discuss the matter with your fellow Council Members. The discussions take place through a series of tricks, where each player plays a card, which can be either a suit card or a reaction card. Each card affects how others see the three accused and can push them toward a conviction or acquittal.

After the hand of ten tricks is completed or someone has no more suit cards, the case closes and the outcomes are revealed, leading to scoring, just as real judges do <jk>. The first Council Member to accumulate 42 points is the winner. 

Mechanisms

Justice is a trick-taking game where you play a series of ten card hands until one of the players has 42 or more points.

The main deck is made up of 70 cards. The four suits and the reaction cards are each numbered 1 to 14. They have additional features that will be discussed later.

Reaction cards can convert a non-trump card into a trump card, but the reaction cards are numbered 1-14 and can only affect a suit card of the same rank. If there is a conflict between a real 13 and a reaction-altered 13, the real 13 wins. Unlike suit cards, you may play a Reaction card at any time during the trick. 

Either ten cards are dealt to each player or there is a draft where hands of 12 are dealt and each player drafts four cards and passes the rest, drafts another four cards from the next batch, then keeps two and discards two from the final four cards.  

The lead player must lead a suit card. Then going clockwise each player must either play a suit card or use a Soulgaze token. To play a card, you must follow suit or play off-suit if void. A reaction card may be played in addition to the played suit card, not instead of it.  Each player starts the round with two Soulgaze tokens and instead of playing cards, they may spend one of their tokens to look at the secret card of one of the accused to determine if they are guilty or innocent. Since there are three accused and only two Soulgaze tokens per player, you cannot know the status of all three. Playing a token preserves the cards in your hand and gives you a victory point.

The winner of the trick is the highest trump, or if no trump has been played, the highest card of the led suit. The trick’s winner gets to take one of the cards from the trick and place it to the left, right, top, or bottom of one of the accused. This can affect the accused by making them more likely to be convicted or acquitted, or adding icons to make the accused more or less compelling to certain factions in Odrixia. Three of the four suits have two side panels with one side adding weight towards conviction and the other towards acquittal. Depending on which side of the suit card is used affects the final result for that character.  The fourth suit can be placed above or below the accused to affect how they score for your character.

After either a player has run out of suit cards or ten tricks, the round ends and scoring begins.

Note the two blue cards on the acquit side of Trader Amy.

Each of the accused is evaluated and adjudged either convicted or acquitted. The guilt or innocence is based solely on the cards played to each of the accused by the winner of each trick. This is why you might use a reaction card. If another player has pushed a character towards being convicted and you also want that character convicted, you might use your reaction card to make their suit card trump so they can win the trick.

The players then score points based on whether they want the guilty to be convicted or acquitted and the innocent to be convicted or acquitted.  They then score extra points for which icons are attached or on the accused’s card based on their secret role. For example, you might want more orcs or not score points for humans.  Finally, some secret roles have conditions that you are trying to meet, such as “+6 points if all suspects are acquitted” or “+3 points if only the guilty are convicted.

Conclusion

I played a prototype copy that was very clear and included a slew of cards, a rulebook, ten surrogate Soulgaze tokens, and a player board.

The cards are clear and there is plenty of flavor text.

If you want to immerse yourself in the world of Factory 42 while duking it out with your fellow Council Members, Justice is for you.